


Harm and Heartbreak - A Pain Killer Story

by JD_Riley



Category: HAMLETMACHINE - Works
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, Nameless Character Death, Painkiller - Freeform, Sex Pollen, Smut, monster death, monster hunting, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:28:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22697884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JD_Riley/pseuds/JD_Riley
Summary: A routine culling goes terribly wrong as monster hunter Juan finds himself captured by a mysterious plant creature whose pollen has strange, disorienting effect.  What is to become of a hunter who is unafraid of harm?  What sort of fantasies thrive in the dark spaces just before death?  If the reaper does not come—can one live through survival?A mindless sex pollen fic.  Don’t be fooled by my whimsical posturing.
Relationships: Juan/Shema
Comments: 25
Kudos: 68





	Harm and Heartbreak - A Pain Killer Story

This was a barren landscape, haunted by perpetual dusk and teeming with shuffling, shambling forms which, soulless, thrived in the dim light. This was the world in which Juan lived, fought, and suffered--a world of monsters and monster hunters. There was but one purpose to existence--to remain upright. To bleed but not die. To keep alive long enough to find pride when death should come. All that mattered, all that made Juan valuable--aside from the more distasteful aspects of his worth--were kill counts. The currency of his hand--that which he could provide with skill and tenacity for the most part, was merely that of extermination.

The function he chose to focus upon was before him each morning when the airlock hissed and the gaskets unsealed to allow his eyes to adjust from the darkness to the rust red of the daylight. Something simmered inside him, roiling about just below the surface of his steady gaze. There was too much emotion trapped inside him, boiling over at the worst of moments. It seemed as though everyone else could get it out and have it be gone--creating within themselves, cold monster slayers who didn’t froth over with rage but performed with cold precision. What Juan had inside him was hot and burning, searing through him as blue flame lances from gas jets. So hot--it only felt cold at first.

The red light shined against his ice-blue eyes and that heat was steady within him. They were released in waves of squads consisting of two or three fireteams, their objective mostly to keep the beasties that roamed about clear from the supply lines. As the toes of their boots were brushed by the dust which had been caught by the hot breeze, Juan could hear the whisper--quiet enough so that Corporal Shema wouldn’t overhear.

_“You think you’re in the mood for a good fuck, boy?”_

That familiar heat was burning cold, still. Juan didn’t look behind him, but rather to the side where Shema stood, his dark eyes scanning the landscape. His was the look of a true soldier--that dispassionate ataraxia which consumed every ounce of his emotion, leaving him nothing but a living, breathing machine which knew no order beyond that of squad leader.

Juan had tried to tell himself again and again that it was Shema’s _efficiency_ which made him attractive. He could only lie to himself for so long before he was confronted with his own thoughts. How desperately he wanted Shema’s tanned flesh against his own. How much longing was in his heart to be looked at with a heated passion from those dark eyes. How deeply he yearned to be held by strong hands and laid down beneath him. He had been _fucked_ enough. He wanted a kind touch. He wanted to be possessed and held tenderly...oh what could he give to have traded places with Shema’s rifle, the strap about his neck and his hand loose around the grip, the side of one finger gently brushing the bottom of the trigger guard. _Oh, to be that rifle._ To be cradled against the corporal’s belly with such a trained and placid touch. He felt a stab of jealousy and another stab of heat as he turned his eyes toward the ridgeline where monsters often congregated. It wasn’t just his efficiency. It was _him._ The _whole of him._

Frustration pooled as dirt kicked up, stinging the flesh of his inner thigh where the shine of his boots ended. The wind was high that morning and in the distance, a huge, towering storm rose into the atmosphere, the winds at the top shearing it off while the winds at the bottom roiled it into a turbid vortex. Storms like this could sit for days, ripping apart the landscape with angry, twisting behemoths formed from the violent air which whipped over the world. This one was far enough away that it was of no concern but its presence had scrambled the vile creatures about and so they teemed along the ridge, spying the advancing squad with curious black voided eyes.

Shema caught their eyes with a hand gesture which would focus Juan’s fireteam to the east to flank and another to the west while his headed straight on to draw the creatures down. They had to be hungry--some of them had been displaced by the storm and they had traveled for several miles. Monsters were not like men. Some of them appeared as though they could have once been men but their endurance was suspect--while a man could walk for miles and miles and subsist upon the barest of caloric intake, a monster could but walk a few before they began to shamble and devour.

Juan unsheathed his sword, the weight of it comfortable in his hands. There were many men he would have liked to swing this sword against, but one would simply have to make due, he supposed, with the monsters. After all, what was the difference, between a man and a monster? A few small, blackened shapes impeded his fireteam on their way up to the east side of the ridge and they were dispatched with careful swings of his sword and deliberate shots by their rifleman. They cut down several small to medium-sized creatures, grotesque in form and stature, their bodies clearly malformed for their unfortunate existence in such a hostile world.

It was easy to hate them. To place every bit of rage and suffering in the edge of his blade when he swung to end them. How many would it take until he was free? How many could he destroy before he would end this fury inside him and find cold complacency? How long until he could feel nothing--as Shema did?

Hot sanguine blood splashed over him, dripping from his bodysuit and smearing over his hips and thighs. He held his sword ready as they advanced around the edge of the ridge, their eyes upon the opening of a small grotto which had the dubious distinction of becoming a safe harbor for less savory monsters in the past. Many teams had tried to fill it in but loose gravel and dirt were readily removed by industrious creatures and the higher-ups had not yet authorized blasting to rid themselves of it. It was thought that such measures would perhaps draw larger creatures or those unknown to them to the sound or the vibrations.

The grotto was dark, the flaming light of the ceaseless dusk unable to reach inside the depths where monsters thrived. Juan was ready. His sword in hand, he waited for the fireteam leader to give the signal.

It never came. It never had a chance. Something with speed unmatched bolted from the entrance, its movement a blur as it skittered inhumanly before leaping through the air. Juan swung, the tip of his blade just barely skimming the creature’s side, unzipping its flesh. It was a glancing blow and did little to stop the ensuing carnage. His team leader was without a throat to scream before he could get out a single word. The creature, unmoved by the seeping wound in its side, took aim at the next of Juan’s team and at least this one could get off a few rounds at it, the rifle’s shots blasting the beast straight through with sprays of blood before he was summarily cut down by that very aberration.

“Juan!”

The last of his team was rushing toward him, assuming that he would be next due only to proximity’s sake. He would be mistaken. There, snaking along the gravel and regolith, were tendrils reaching for Juan’s boots. These the hunter saw, sweeping his sword tip across the ground to sever them. Unlike the tentacles of a sentient monster, these did not react to the blows, the fluid which came out of them not like blood at all but clear and watery. It did not feel pain and it was in this knowledge that Juan found fear. The rampaging beast which could have become his death was near forgotten when those tendrils wrapped around his ankles and drew his feet out from under him, his bare rump hitting the ground hard. The last he saw before he was dragged painfully over the sharp stones of the earth was his final team member’s body split apart in the dusklight.

_No._

It was so easy to die. One moment you were clearing a ridge and the next you were towed into the darkness, to the neverending quietude of death. Juan was never one to suspect that he might go quietly. He was too marred by ire for something so easy. His sword sparked against the stoned behind him as he dragged it and at the closest chance, he swung out in front of him, finding nothing but air. He jabbed forward, steadying the belly of the blade on his foot so that if something should devour him by his feet, it should impale itself first. The precaution would be for naught, he found, for the dragging ceased long before he was swallowed and his eyes adjusted to the dimness about. It was cut only by the slightest of bioluminescence which stemmed from small bulbs which hung as though suspended from the ceiling, jittering every so often with a life of their own.

Quickly, he cut himself free, scrambling to his feet only to find that he could not maintain his balance as he staggered to the side and fell heavily against the cool stone wall. His rump and back were bleeding, rashed by his violent transport and the sharpness of the gravel beneath him. The stinging was nothing to him. Pain was nothing to him. At least--pain like this. The air was cooler than the surface and stagnant with a bittersweet scent which cloyed at his nose and stole his breaths, transforming them into harsh sweeping pants.

_What is this?_

He blinked against the low light, his mind registering a shape inside the pervasive darkness. Huge and shivering, a creature with many tendrils--or perhaps not a creature. A _plant_ of sorts. One that could move, could find solace in dark spaces. One that survived in low light and sought sustenance from the creatures around it. These were rare, something told of in stories and rarely seen and even more rarely survived.

_At least,_ Juan thought sardonically, _death will not be so unpleasant as to be torn apart._

The tendrils came toward him again and his muscles felt weak--a product of this thing’s presence. Its pollen at once an analgesic and a tranquilizer. Nothing could hurt him. Not harm nor heartbreak. Alarmingly, his grip upon his sword loosened and he worked hard to hold it with his former strength, finding it impossible. The tendrils crept over the ground and he felt them again on his feet but they did not grasp at him, knowing that the pollen had already soothed him. They touched him, tapping him and measuring him, their touch light as they prodded his calves, his thighs, his waist and his chest. They gently slid over his arms and his throat, rustling over the mess of his hair before they retreated just a little. Perhaps it was not hungry now. Perhaps it would save him for later.

A scuffling sounded through the dark and a throaty scream warbled--the sound of a monster. Scratching and struggling ensued while Juan watched with an apathetic gaze--the skittering multi-legged creature which had been wounded by him previously was being dragged heavily back into the grotto, its form writhing and shrieking before it was taken and engulfed slowly by the huge, looming plant, its cries those of desperation and then resigned, mournful grieving.

Juan watched it, unknowing of how much time passed between its introduction to the plant’s maw and its full envelopment. It could have been seconds. It could have been hours. He wasn’t holding the grip of his sword anymore, the long, thick blade giving off warped reflections of the tiny glowing bulbs around it. He felt boneless and burning, his body aching for some unspecific purpose. It wasn’t like the furious urge to _fuck_ he’d gotten from the insects which sought to find incubators for eggs. It was emotional. It was raw. It was a haunting and insidious desperation to let go of every ounce of hurt which had shaped him. He saw the tendrils nearby to him and in them, he saw the _boss._

“ _D…_ ” he tried, his voice difficult to produce through the effects of the pollen. “ _D...Don’t t-t-tuh-touch me…_ ”

Shockingly, they didn’t, calming a bit despite their odd jittering, as though the plant itself shivered--perhaps a mechanism to release its influence.

To live without pain. Without the heaviness of his heart and without the fury of his soul. It was as though he existed within the realm of a dream. The bulbs above him like stars in the night. Oh, to see stars again. To live in a world where there was night again. Where there was more vastness around him than the red desert dust and the sweeping emptiness of his own existence. Where he could reach up and make a wish.

_A wish. A wish. I wish…_

“ _Juan!_ ”

_Shema. Cold. Efficient. Graceful. Gorgeous…_

Hands were on him, on his pauldrons and his arms, shaking him as though it could bring him back from the realm of stars. Blurry and unfocused, Juan stared blankly into dark eyes, inky black within the grotto.

“ _She...ma...Shema…_ ” A vague lance of panic began to well up from deep within his heart and he reached up to Shema’s neck. “ _Shema, no. Get...Get out. Get out…_ ”

“I’m going to pick you up.”

“ _No! You have to...you have...to...live…_ ” He could barely feel his face, working hard for every word. The rustling of the plant was faster now, filling the void of murk with the sound and the scent of its hunger. He was nothing to Shema. Compared to the corporal, he was dirt beneath a shoe, barely more than an inconvenience.

_He wasn’t worth saving._

The thought should have been painful but nothing could hurt him now. _Not harm nor heartbreak._

The effect of the pollen over his senses was strong and despite his urging for Shema to go, his hand was still upon the man’s body, weakly holding him there. Shema, though having stated his intentions, was still kneeling, his body reacting to the plant’s will. He could not lift Juan’s weight. Not without the willpower to do so which was sapped readily as consequence for his interference.

“ _No...no...Shema…_ ”

A glaze came over those dark, jet eyes and his hands which had been upon Juan’s shoulders trailed slowly to his chest, resting there for a time before Shema sleepily touched over Juan’s belly, his fingers dipping beneath the stretch of his bodysuit.

“ _What...what are you...d-doing?_ ”

Shema blinked, shaking his head slightly as if trying to reorient himself for a moment. It didn’t work, his eyes still hazed and his expression that of a man who was near to the edge of sleep. “ _I...I d-don’t know…_ ” It didn’t matter, after a few seconds, his black-gloved hands were pulling at the stretchable fabric of Juan’s bodysuit, pulling it away from his ready and straining erection.

“ _Shema...don’t…_ ” It wasn’t what he wanted to say. This was his fantasy. This was everything he ever wanted.

_Not like this._

He wanted Shema to want him. To come to him of his own volition. To knock on his door in the middle of the night to wake him and tell him that he’d been watching him for so long. Having the same fantasies, needing him in the long hours he spent alone, touching himself to the thought of him…

Shema’s voice was breathy and uncontrolled. “ _I can’t...I can’t stop…_ ”

Juan realized he was still holding Shema’s neck, keeping him where he was, even pulling just slightly as if his body could not fathom the idea of losing this warmth and the potential for passion. The rustling began again and another wave of _something_ struck him. It still didn’t burn. It still wasn’t hot. But it was pressing.

_“Shema...I want...I’ve wanted…”_

_“...me?”_

He found one of Shema’s hands and took it, keeping their eyes locked when he brushed those fingers against the length of his manhood and shivered at the resulting reaction. His whole body trembled as the plant shuddered and quaked, the rustling all he could hear when the squad leader loomed over him, releasing himself from the front of his uniform, hard and ready. Waves of emotion and need rippled through them, his own want reflected in the ink eyes above him.

There was no more ability to speak, the plant’s will foremost of all things in their minds. Juan felt as though he were a puppet, his body stretching out beneath Shema, his thighs opening around his hips as though each leg were controlled by some invisible string. The bulbs of bioluminescence seemed to lower around them, the glow a soft yellow, illuminating the faint blue shimmer of pollen which had attached to their bodies.

_Touch me. Hold me. Have me._

Juan let his head fall back against the rock wall, his mouth open as he breathed in the air and willingly let himself fall into the oblivion he craved. There could be no pain here. Nothing but pleasure with his Shema in his arms. No red dusk or hurtful words or shame to find him. Just a dark, damp grotto and the purest feeling of sweet belonging he could ever feel in this lifetime.

Shema spat in his hand, holding them together, velvet flesh against velvet flesh, stroking them together with careful precision. His efficiency was not lost to these moments and he leaned, rocking his hips slightly to produce more friction than just his grip. 

Pleasure sparked in Juan’s body, tingling through every one of his limbs, his fingers numb along with his lips and nose. He felt drunk and unfocused while pleasure overtook his senses, every second spent in this hidden oasis kindling an ever-deepening passion for Shema’s body within him. He wanted more. He wanted it all. He wanted the man above him to love him and adore him and _crave_ him like a drug. More than anything, and perhaps disturbingly, he wanted to _become one_.

Shema’s motions became less exact as if he could sense Juan’s thoughts, his hands shaking even harder as he spat into his fingers again, wetting them with copious amounts of spit before he somehow managed to touch Juan _exactly_ where he wished with hands that trembled so greatly that it was a wonder the squad leader could have ever carried a rifle and held it so steady. He pushed into Juan with one then two fingers and then thought better of it, seeking only to coat his own cock with spit before he butted it against Juan’s entrance, pausing as though he had to stop and think about his next course of action.

_Spear me. Impale me. Possess me._

_“Uuuuuhhhn!”_

It was impossible to know which one of them had emitted the sound--perhaps they both had. Shema’s press inside was an explosion of sensation, sending flashes of brilliance into Juan’s eyes as his nerves sang with a profound euphoria. He felt his hips pulled by strong hands as he was repositioned on the grotto’s floor before his lover came over him, blanketing him with his body while Juan’s legs wrapped around his back. He was held, finally, while Shema’s hips jerked, every thrust drawing enraptured cries from their throats, their pleasure melding them as though two creatures now bound to be one--a shared consciousness with but one function.

_Come. I want to come. I want to come so hard that for one last time, I see the galaxies beyond this red hell._

He felt it, simmering and frothing and boiling within him.

_“Ah! Ah! Uhn! Hah! Ahn!”_

Juan wrapped his arms around Shema’s form, holding him tight, dragging his fingers through his hair and pressing every inch of them together as though he might expire should he be left apart. The edge was fast approaching and before he knew it, he was careening from the edge of that precipice, his body convulsing as they groaned together in ecstasy--a shattering delirium descending over them as the stars around them shined on.

He knew not how long he lay with Shema panting over him, his cock buried deep and left there, still hard despite his potent release. When another sweeping urge struck them, Shema rocked within him, their moans like that of one being--their euphoria that of one soul.

Juan did not recall anything of their rescue. Only that one moment, there were stars above him, and the next, he was sleepily coming to. His blurry thoughts were unable to comprehend the warm water which bathed he and Shema together, still bound in a lover’s embrace, unable to separate. A mask was over his face and the light was too bright and sterile white. When he was finally coaxed to let go of his Shema, he felt as though a part of his heart went with him and he could see the same thought pass through Shema’s bleary eyes when he was taken.

“It’s alright, Juan,” he heard through the fog in his mind. A voice he felt was familiar and cold. He blinked, his focus resting upon the long, black hair and emotionless gaze of his _boss_. He felt suddenly like he might be sick. There was no pollen here and his heart began to ache as reality began to pulse larger and larger into his consciousness, the red dusk obscuring the stars in his memory.

Things could hurt him here. Both harm...and heartbreak.

**Author's Note:**

> This plant monster is a poor literary representation of me as an author. 
> 
> Please, if you aren’t already a Patron of [HamletMachine](https://twitter.com/Hamlet_Machine) (known best for her webcomic _[Starfighter](http://starfightercomic.com/index.php)_ ) go and sign up. _Pain Killer_ has very little in the way of lore and it makes my brain do funky shit. Love that.


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